The Six Million Dollar Dollhouse
by Fish Bag
Summary: It was broken beyond all repair. Shattered in a million pieces. Could it possibly be fixed? What, or who, would it take to rebuild it?


**A/N This is a post-ep for It's Just Like Riding a Bike. When I watched the episode, it really seemed odd to me how they just brought up and then promptly dropped the whole broken dollhouse storyline. I had a hunch that there was originally supposed to be more to the story than what we ended up seeing on the show. This is my take on what could have/should have/might have happened offscreen.**

**It's now 2013, and I have no doubt that our favourite couple is currently happily married and living in the Twickham house with their plants and their kids. But how could they get there, based on what we saw in the last two seasons? This is the one of many "trying to fix things" stories floating around my head (in various stages of development) and the first that I have actually had the guts to post. I have to thank Eledgy for beta-ing and patiently putting up with my shenanigans and DeepFriedCake for being my unwavering cheerleader and motivator through months of pointless insanity. You guys rock, and if you weren't out there still plugging away with fantastic new material, I would never ever have even considered writing, let alone posting. Vive la renaissance! **

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**The Six Million Dollar Dollhouse**

The last time he came to door, three nights earlier, he was on a classic Luke rant - the kind that warmed her heart and felt made her feel that maybe, in time, everything would be okay again. Engines, Craigslist, Gypsy, bells, horns. The words didn't matter. Her Luke was back and she was happy. But the man ranting in front of her now was not endearing. He was frantic, desperate, agitated. His eyes were bloodshot, but he clearly wasn't drunk. He was rambling as if he hadn't slept in days - and he hadn't. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn't quite place who.

These new jumbled words didn't flow the way the others had three days before. Failure, epoxy, wood rot, Jackson, chimney. It was pretty hard to stump Lorelai Gilmore with obscure references, but she couldn't piece it together. Then she picked up on a familiar word:

"…dollhouse."

'Oh,' Lorelai thought with relief. 'Is that all?' She had already reconciled the notion of her beloved dollhouse possibly being finito.

She offered lightheartedly, "You heard, huh? That's what we get for letting Tornado Jackson blow through the Crap Shack. Right, Paul Anka?" she lovingly cooed to the dog at her feet. "It's okay, though. Sookie found an all-powerful online wizard to fix it."

"NO!" Luke bellowed, stomping his foot and flailing his arms like a tantrumming child. A spooked Paul Anka skidded down the porch and hid under the bench as Luke continued raving. "There is no such thing as an online dollhouse fixing wizard!"

Lorelai had never seen Luke like this. She couldn't do anything but stare at him, speechless. She decided that the best course of action would be to let him rant it out while she took it all in. Suddenly she felt her stomach flip and her chest tighten as she realized what she must have looked like to him that horrible night one year before. Had it already been a year? Had it only been a year?

"There's no online wizard! There's no such thing," he repeated frantically. "She brought it to _ME_, they brought it me so I could fix it."

"Sookie? Sookie brought it to you?" Lorelai whispered, mainly to herself. "To fix. Oh, Sookie."

"I fix things. That's what I do. I was supposed to _fix _your dollhouse. That was the plan. I'm supposed to be able to fix anything." He paused, grabbed his face in his hands and rubbed hard. After a long silence, he spoke in a hoarse voice. "But I couldn't do it. I couldn't fix it."

The revelation seemed to transform his state of mind. He now seemed slightly more in control of his emotions, less frantic, but completely defeated. He slunk down onto the steps, turning toward the railing in an almost fetal-like position before continuing in a crushed tone that matched his body language.

"I tried, Lorelai. I really did. I tried so hard to fix it. To rebuild it exactly the way it was. But there was just too much damage." His voice broke. "Which was just so hard to believe, because it was so well made, with such quality, and care, and I looked at all the tiny little pieces, and individually, they were still amazing. Perfect little pieces of rooms and floors and walls and lights and furniture. But the structure, it was just too broken. I'm so sorry. It couldn't be fixed."

"Oh." Lorelai couldn't say anything more. She barely got that one sound out as it was.

"What I just can't understand is how easily it all fell apart like that. I mean, Jackson said he just tripped, and little things like that should be able to happen, you know? There are so many great parts of this dollhouse and so many great memories and there's so much quality workmanship to it. But then it just completely shattered. It shouldn't have collapsed like that. It should have been able to withstand more."

Luke looked down and swallowed hard. When he looked up, his eyes were moist. Lorelai quickly looked away and wiped at her own streaked cheeks. He plowed on in an unsteady voice.

"I'm sorry. I should have noticed. When we were - when I was here. It was just there one day in the corner of the room and I assumed it would be okay. But I should have checked, you know? I swear to God, Lorelai, it never occurred to me that it was crumbling apart inside. Because it looked okay on the outside. But I should have paid more attention instead of just letting it fall apart in the corner of the room. I should have checked the structure for cracks when your dad brought it over. Maybe if I had, I could have saved it. But now it's just too late. I'm sorry."

He finished his rant but didn't move from the stairs. His head was in his hands, his body slumped in complete and utter physical and emotional exhaustion.

"I'm sorry too," Lorelai tried to say, but she found herself unable to speak. Instead, she sat down beside Luke on the steps and together they mourned silently. She gently coaxed him away from the railing, and tried to get him to lie down against her, using her legs as a pillow. He did eventually lean toward her, but the rigid rim of his black cap poked into her, getting in the way and causing both of them discomfort. Taking her frustrations out on the ugly hat, she ripped it from his head. She flung it wildly onto the porch, causing Paul Anka to yelp pitifully, even though it landed a good foot and a half from his front paws. Lorelai mentally added 'flying baseball caps' to the list of her dog's quirky fears, as she dutifully cast a concerned glance over to where he lay. She gasped softly.

There, off to the side near the window, was a dollhouse that looked amazingly like hers. Even in the dark, she could see slight differences - the blue color was deeper, the shingles lighter, and the white trim was shinier than she remembered. But that was her dollhouse alright.

"Um, heyyyy, Luke?"

He looked up to where her voice carried. "Oh, oh, yeah," he said casually, almost as an afterthought. And just like that, his demeanor changed once again. He bolted upright, grabbed Lorelai's hand and led her over to the dollhouse. He spoke with a manic exuberance that could only result from the unique combination of fatigue and adrenaline.

"Yeah, so I couldn't fix the original house. But I started thinking, what if I just started with some of the old pieces, the really good, sturdy pieces, and built, like, a whole _new_ house? With a stronger foundation this time. So… here," he pointed, reminding Lorelai of a child at show-and-tell. "See, it's a whole new foundation, but I saved pieces where I could, and here's the original fireplace, because that was really strong, and for the shingles, I used a mixture of the old and the new. And I found this modeling plaster April had, and then I figured if I added some powdered grout into the mix and made kind of a mosaic thing with some of the old pieces, like keeping them there, see?" He pointed to a spot inside the house and met her eyes to confirm she was following him. He was too tired to even try to decipher the look on Lorelai's face, but so many emotions were crossing it each second that it would have been impossible to read had he been completely rested. He mistakenly settled on disinterested, which was the last thing she was feeling at that point. "Ah, sorry - I'm boring you."

Lorelai shook her head. "Go on," she whispered hopefully.

"Anyway, it's kinda like a whole new house, but it's got the best parts of the old house in there too. So, it's up to you. You can just chuck the whole thing if you want to, no big deal; I understand it's not your old dollhouse." He paused to collect his breath. "But, you know, in a lot of ways, it's better now that's it's rebuilt. I mean,_** I **_think it's better. Stronger."

"Faster." Lorelai finished, giggling to herself.

"Huh?"

She sat down again patted the spot beside her. "Come here," she beckoned, determined to comfort him properly now that the unsightly hat was gone. "You've been working on this, rebuilding, since -" Luke nodded sheepishly. "Have you slept at all?" He shook his head. Lorelai put her arm around him, cradling his head and urging him to rest it on her shoulder. Pride gave way to fatigue, and he nestled into her.

They stayed like that for a very long time, and Lorelai thought Luke might have actually fallen asleep against her. Finally, she heard him sigh deeply. He lifted himself up and gave a whole body stretch. When he had resettled at her side, she somehow found herself leaning against_ his_ chest, his arm cradling _her_ shoulders. Lorelai smiled. Her Luke was back once again. She could feel it as they sat silently beside each other, and she could hear it when they began to banter.

"Well, that's the best I could do. So what do you think?"

"It's better."

"Stronger."

"It's the Steve Austin of dollhouses," Lorelai pronounced for her own amusement.

"Jamie Somers."

"Excuse me?"

"Not Steve Austin. Jamie Somers," Luke admonished playfully. "It's a _dollhouse_, Lorelai. Jeez."

"Ok, it's the Jamie Somers of dollhouses," she conceded, beaming. "Really, Danes, the things you know."

"I had a sister," he shrugged. He looked straight into her eyes before continuing. "Well, you still want it?"

Lorelai smiled slowly in response, never breaking eye contact.

"Bring it inside."


End file.
